So There's a Cowboy and a City Girl in an Elevator
by lucayaprompts
Summary: Lucas and Maya get stuck on an elevator together and to pass the time, they play 20 Questions.


**Title: **So There's a Cowboy and a City Girl in an Elevator  
**Author: **lucayaprompts

Disclaimer: _I do not own Girl Meets World._

**original prompt: **Getting stuck in an elevator; playing 20 questions.

* * *

There was one thing Maya hated more than anything in the world; well, not more than math tests and not more than tourists asking her the difference between the A and L and okay, maybe getting stuck on an elevator was pretty low on the list of things she hated, but that didn't make her feel any better about it. Especially since she couldn't be stuck with Riley or on her own, or God, she'd even take Farkle. As long as it meant she wasn't stuck here with _him_.

"What are you even doing here anyway?" she huffed, leaning against the cold steel wall, glaring at him. He was maybe a foot away, the closest he'd been in over a month. It wasn't far enough.

"I'm supposed to be painting someone's apartment," he said, appearing as calm as ever, but she knew better now. Maybe when they were twelve, he could have fooled her but she'd gotten to know him too well over the past four years. Under all that southern cool, he was as irritated as she was. He was just still too polite to show it.

"Oh that's a match made in heaven."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I can't think of anyone else who deserves to watch paint dry more than you."

"Oh, I get it," he sighed, shaking his head. "I'm boring."

"Ding ding ding."

"Funny." He wasn't laughing. He never laughed at her jokes anymore; maybe that's why she stopped making them around him. Could she really blame him though? She knew he didn't understand. Even though they'd been friends for years at this point, and okay, technically they had been dating for just over a month when she broke up with him, he never really saw things the way she did. Not when it came to them, not when it came to-

It didn't matter anymore anyway. It was done. Over. She didn't need him to be her friend anyway.

She just kind of hoped her still would be.

"Buck up Cowboy," she sighed after a few long, silent, awkward moments. "It was a joke."

"Everything's a joke to you," he muttered, her ears perking up and her mouth falling slightly open at the absolute disdain his voice held. The patience she always attributed to him, it was gone and replaced with something darker. She'd known he had it in him, but it had never been directed at her before, not even when she told him they weren't together anymore. He'd been confused and begging her to talk to him, but he hadn't… he hadn't hated her.

Had she done that to him?

"I'm sorry," he whispered when he realized she'd heard him and she wanted to roll her eyes or scoff or do _something_ to make it look like she didn't care - she didn't want to care - but all she could do was watch him slide down the elevator wall, his arms balancing over his bent knees as he hung his head in his hands.

She moved to sit next to him, leaving just enough space between them so that they didn't touch, but sat with her arms around her legs, her head against her own knees. "So how long do you think this will take?" she asked, trying to keep her voice neutral, but it still came out hushed.

"I don't know Maya," he replied, looking up at the panel that kept blinking in and out. "At least they know we're in here."

"It was a good idea, using the phone even though the out of order sign was on it." He nodded, even though he wouldn't look at her and she hit her head against her knees once before unwinding her arms from around her legs, planting one arm on his shoulder and shoving him as hard as she could. He nearly toppled over, glaring at her after he righted himself.

"What the hell, Maya?"

She blinked once at him; had she ever heard him curse before? She couldn't remember, their little lives flashing through her brain and she finally settled on no, he'd never cursed in front of her. So that was new.

"That's your first question," she stated, arching her brow, mocking the way his did first. "I'm bored and we're stuck here. We might as well play a game."

"Maya Hart, answer a question? I don't believe it."

"Hardy-har-har." She held up two fingers, the other hand held over her heart. "I swear to answer any questions you have honestly, though I reserve the right to keep any and all secrets held for other people. Oh and I get one pass."

"Same for me?"

"Yessiree," she drawled and she could have sworn a hint of his usual smile appeared in the corner of his lips. "I'll even let you have a redo on your first question." He was a little hesitant, his new first question kind of dumb and generic, but she answered it with a forced smile anyway. But a few questions later, she found her smile starting to feel real and his was starting to come back out; she could pretend that they were still friends, like they had been before. By the fifteenth question, she was sure she was going to pass out laughing while she listened to him trying to explain how he'd pierced his ear when he was eight, finally explaining the faint silver scar she'd noticed first in ninth grade.

"Listen, okay, this was really traumatic!" he laughed, trying to make her look at him as she laughed against his shoulder. "The fish hook went straight through, I could have been infected with any number of things. Do you know what catfish do in that water?"

"No, please, I can't listen to this anymore," she giggled, clutching her side.

"I had to get stitches, Maya," he continued anyway. "They eight of them, right in the ear."

"Stop," she grinned, resting her chin on his shoulder. "It's your turn now."

He took a minute to think, his brow setting deeper and deeper and she could sense the mood changing even before he said anything. To his credit, he looked like he was trying to think of anything else, but he kept frowning and he wouldn't quite look her in the eye. She knew what was coming.

"Why did you break up with me?"

She bit back her sigh and moved away, staring up at the ceiling. "Pass."

"You already used your pass."

_Damn._ He was right; she hadn't wanted to talk about how her mom was thinking of taking back her dad after all he'd done, so she'd moved on. Now she'd rather spend the next hour ranting about how annoyed she was with the whole thing than answer this for him.

"I can't tell you," she said, hoping he'd drop it, but his smile disappeared completely and was instantly replaced by a hard straight line that looked so harsh and foreign on him.

"You owe me."

"I don't owe you anything," she tried to argue, but the sinking pit that had been in her stomach for the last month reminded her that he was right. Again. How annoying.

"Everything was fine. You were fine, I was fine, Riley was fine, and then the next day-"

"Riley was not fine," she muttered, staring at her knees now, tracing the pattern in her tights as she waited for that to sink in, for him to put the pieces together. But he just looked at her in confusion, earnest eyes boring holes into her and _god_, he could not. do. that. That was how she's fallen for him in the first place, how this whole mess had started, because he stared at her like she was something wonderful and she really wasn't.

"What are you talking about?"

"It's my turn."

"Maya."

"Riley wasn't okay with us dating, okay?" She wasn't supposed to tell him; Riley had begged her not to, had even begged her not to break up with him, but what kind of friend was she, dating the first boy her best friend had fallen in love with? It didn't matter that they'd stopped seeing each other over a year ago, they'd been together for three and Riley had been convinced she was going to be with him forever. Like her parents, she was going to have that same love story. She hadn't been prepared for it to end, even if she'd been the one to break it off, and Maya had been the one to hold her while she cried almost every night.

It didn't matter that Lucas has asked Riley first if he could date Maya. It didn't matter that Maya had told him she had to check with Riley first. Her best friend was an amazing, beautiful person who pushed aside her own feelings for others. She said it was okay, but it still hurt her. And when Maya figured it out, she couldn't just ignore it. Riley had to come first. Lucas was just a boy. Riley was her family.

"But I asked her and she said-"

"Yeah, she told me the same thing," Maya replied. "But whatever, she lied."

"Riley doesn't lie."

"Well, she lied about this," Maya insisted. He didn't know. He hadn't seen it. "So we can't date because I won't hurt her. Not for you, not for anyone."

"And what about me?" he asked, that anger back from earlier. "Do you know how hard it was to work up the nerve to even ask you out? I'm not new here anymore, I know how important you and Riley are to each other and I didn't want to get in the way of that. That's why I asked first."

"Well maybe you should have read between the lines."

"I'm not a mind reader!" he shouted and she actually winced.

"Well I'm not either!" she yelled back. "If I was so important to you, why didn't you try harder? You just let me break up with you and then you didn't even fight me."

"There's no fighting you when you get like that," he said. "It's always your way or the highway."

"Oh and you're so easy to get along with?"

"Yeah, I like to think I am."

"Well you're… you're just… you're not!"

Oh yeah, real strong, Hart, she sighed to herself. Why did this have to be so hard? The silence fell between them again and she didn't know what to do to cut through it this time. Did they just leave it like that? Forever? Would this be the last thing she ever said to him? It wasn't her best moment, but maybe it was better than anything she was going to get.

"Riley told me she didn't want us to break up."

"Riley doesn't know what she wants," she said automatically and she tried to make her point by glaring at him, but she could feel her eyes softening the longer he looked at her as he tried to decide what to say.

"She said the same thing about you," was what he finally settled on and she couldn't help the little jolt of surprise that ran through her. "She told me that… well, she said she didn't realize how hard it would be to move on until I tried to. And I know, I could have picked a different person to do it with, but I found myself thinking about you and she got that. So maybe she was upset, but it wasn't because she didn't want you to be happy. And you were, right? We were pretty happy for awhile."

"I can't be happy when she's not," Maya whispered, her eyes dropping for just a moment before she forced them back up. "No matter how close to it I was."

"She's dating Farkle now," Lucas said as if he needed to remind her. "And I don't know about you, but she seems pretty happy. Happy when you're not."

"So?"

"So maybe she's moved on. Maybe if you asked her again-"

"I'm not asking her again."

"I did."

The surprise Maya felt earlier? That was shock now, full blown. "Lucas you… you did what?"

"She said yes," Lucas said, then chuckled to himself. "Actually she said 'ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod yes please yay!' and hugged me while jumping up and down, but she said yes."

"That's my little weirdo," Maya sighed, her lips tugging up in the corners.

"So maybe we could try again?" he asked and she really didn't want to smile, but it was so hard not to when it felt like this weight was finally being lifted off her chest. She'd still have to check with Riley, to be absolutely sure but…. she'd missed him. As a friend, for sure, but there had been too many nights where she'd wondered what else she'd missed out on.

"Is that your last question?"

"Yes. Is that yours?"

She leaned forward until her nose bumped into his. She wouldn't kiss him - not yet, not until she_knew_ \- but she could let herself be happy as long as she was stuck here with him. And when the elevator finally decided to work, or they were rescued some other way, she'd figure it all out with Riley. And then she'd figure it out with Lucas.

"Yes," she finally said. "Sure, Cowboy, let's give this rodeo another go."


End file.
